There are approximately 15 million Jews, worldwide. As of 2017, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 892 individuals, of whom 201 or 22.5% were Jews, although the total Jewish population comprises less than 0.2% of the world’s population. This means the percentage of Jewish Nobel laureates is at least 112.5 times or 11,250% above average.

Muslims have only 12 Nobel prize winners. Seven of the twelve are for the Peace prize; all out of 1.8 billion population.

So why the disparity and the apparent backwardness of the Muslim World?
The answer is religion, which poisons everything.

Worldwide, Muslims are currently more likely to adhere to literal religious beliefs than Christians or Jews, with no direct equivalent in Islam to the Enlightenment or Haskala. Combined with a much lower incidence of atheism, this often places Muslim societies at odds with certain aspects of science such as evolution (eg only 22% in secular Turkey believe in human evolution, and fewer elsewhere). Furthermore, literal religious beliefs are themselves intrinsically anti-science to an extent, in as far as they privilege revealed knowledge over falsifiable evidence. The large role of religion in politics and education in much of the Muslim World can reinforce this attitude.

The anti-Westernism of many Islamist ideologies can also lend itself to anti-science beliefs. Scientific discourse is often hindered by the lack of democracy in most of the Muslim World.